In the privacy of our hotel room, however, Spencer’s tension came back. We’d gone immediately to sleep, exhausted from travel and not wanting to address the obvious source of awkwardness between us. And though Spencer seemed more relaxed waking up, he still wasn’t in a talkative mood. More so than usual.
“Seriously, seriously sorry,” I tap a knuckle on the door. I remember spring break. His blanket fort apology. And how he said if he knew definitions off the top of his head, he’d say something smart, as opposed to just ‘sorry’.
I want to tell him it’s impossible. I know many definitions off the top of my head, and I still can’t find a better way to express how terrible I feel at the possibility that my cowardice hurt him.
A muffled response comes from the bathroom. The knob turns. I move just in time before I fall back as it opens.
I try to speak, but no words form. Because I take one look at Spencer—
And forget everything else.
I take in the tux jacket, black and trim and snuggly buttoned over his torso. My gaze darts to the matching creased pants, the polished shoes. Then back up. To the way he smooths down the slim black tie, then the teal kerchief in his breast pocket, the one I’d given him that matches my bridesmaid dress.
Damn.
And I breathe, “Damn.”
He laughs, that soft rumbling one that makes me shiver. Keep it together, knees, don’t fail me now.
“See something you like?” he asks, running a hand through his hair, all suave and sensuous and seductive.
“No,” I bite back a smile, even as my eyes land back on his button down shirt, wondering just how quickly I can tear it off him. I shake my head, pointedly bringing my gaze back to his, “What’d you say?”
“It’s fine,” he says, setting his hands on my waist. “Everyone forgets shit. Even you, princess. Stop apologizing.”
Relief floods me. Guilt rushes swiftly after it. To avoid saying anything else—apologizing, explaining I half-forgot, starting an argument on the day of my sister’s wedding—I kiss him.
He pulls back first. As he’s done so many times now, always at that delicious moment when his kiss starts making my body fall into his. “Don’t start shit. You need to get going.”
No. More kissing, I want to stomp my foot. But he’s right. I’m due to meet with my sisters in the hotel lobby, so we can get ready. I’m still in my pajamas, which Spencer gives a heated smirk, because the shirt’s his and the bottoms are from the matching set I’d worn the night I threw myself at him.
I roll my eyes, ignore the responding warmth between my legs at his grin, and grab everything I need. Which isn’t much, since the salon will do my hair and makeup, and Brigid has my dress. I find my purse and the present I’d brought for my sister and her bride. When I bend to grab my heels, an open envelope slides off the wrapped box.
“Crap, hold on,” I tell Spencer, who waits for me. “I need to sign their card.”
I set everything on the hotel desk, but I can’t find a pen. With an impatient huff, I rummage in my purse until I find a plastic package of permanent markers.
“At any given time, how many office supplies do you carry around?” Spencer comes up behind me, poking at the package.
“It’s part of the gift,” I nod at the present, shooing him away from my purse, which also contains my emergency sticky notes and index cards. Possibly some paper clips.
I explain the events of last New Year’s, with Charlotte scribbling on Brigid’s face and their subsequent chase around my parents’ house. For their marriage, I’d found an image of Brigid and Charlie from that night, both with facial markings and so utterly, radiantly, happily in love. I’d framed it with a single permanent marker, including a caption, To remind you, always, of how crazy in love you are.
Spencer approves of the gift with a grunt, then continues his vigil by the door as I use one of the markers to sign my name on the card. At the last moment, I add Spencer’s after it, then seal the envelope.
“Ready to be subjected to the entire Walsh clan?” I ask.
He holds the door open for me. “I already met your sisters.”
“Well, yeah,” I laugh. “But now you’re going to meet my dad.”
30
Spencer
“I thought she was dating that other boy—from the country club?” the stooping, white-haired lady asks the woman standing beside her. She tries to hide what she’s saying with a hand, but she says it loud enough I hear every syllable—no doubt because the bit of plastic in her ear isn’t correctly tuned.
Sorry, the woman, one of Kennedy’s cousins, mouths to me with an apologetic grimace. She pats the old woman’s hand. “No, Aunt Sarah, this is Spencer. Kennedy’s new boyfriend.”
Aunt Sarah—one of Kennedy’s great-aunts—squints at me through thin wire bifocals. She grunts. I grunt back.
“What was that boy’s name?” she turns back to the cousin. “Asher something—”
“Ashton,” the cousin and I say at the same time. Me, through gritted teeth.
If I never have to go another fucking moment without hearing that douchebag’s name, or having someone apologize to me for the hundredth fucking time today, I fucking swear I’ll fucking never say fuck again.
“He’s taller than Asher,” Aunt Sarah mutters, craning her neck to squint more at my face. In that non-whispering tone, she says to the cousin, “Bet his pecker’s bigger, too.”
The cousin looks petrified, whether at her relative’s outspoken candidness or how she practically shouted ‘pecker’, but for the first time since arriving at the church, I
